French Revolution Photo Gallery and related media

French Revolution

Storming the Bastille

On July 14, 1789, a group of Parisian revolutionaries seized the Bastille prison in a dramatic act of protest against King Louis XVI. The storming of the Bastille was the symbolic start of the French Revolution.

The Mutual Broadcasting System presents a simultaneous translation of a speech being delivered to the French people by President Charles de Gaulle on the uprising in the French colony of Algeria. In 1954, Algeria's National Liberation Front began a guerrilla war against France in order to gain independence and establish self-rule.

On March 16, 1988, State Department spokesman Charles Redman describes the Sandinistas' primary objective in destroying resistance supplies in Honduras. President Ronald Reagan deployed combat troops to Honduras in an effort to support the Honduran government in its battle against the Sandinistas.